*****
“Each of us hears them speaking in our own tongue about the marvels that God has accomplished.”
Despite the fact that they were speaking to many people from many languages and many cultures, the apostles were understood by all of their listeners as they proclaimed the marvels that God had accomplished.
How was this possible?
Enflamed by the power of the Holy Spirit, the apostles were speaking the language of the heart. They were speaking with enthusiasm. They were speaking with gratitude. They were speaking with praise and thanksgiving. They were speaking from the core. They were speaking from the soul.
In short, they were speaking the universal language - the language of the heart.
We are most human - we are most divine - when we speak the language of the heart, when we speak the language of love, when we speak and listen from the soul, when we are grounded in the Word-Made-Flesh.
As we know all too well from our own experience, there is more to communication than meets the eye, or for that matter, even the tongue or the ear. Communicating is often a lot easier said than done. We frequently misunderstand one another. We frequently presume to know what others are thinking or feeling. We frequently use the same words for which there are different meanings. We frequently have different ways of saying the same thing. We frequently hear, but we frequently fail to listen. We are always talking, but talking is not the same as communicating or speaking from one heart to another.
St. Francis de Sales tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to inflame the hearts of believers. When we speak and listen from hearts enflamed with joy, truth and gratitude, conflict gives way to understanding, confusion gives way to clarity, estrangement gives way to intimacy, hurt gives way to healing, frustration gives way to forgiveness, violence gives way to peace and sin gives way to salvation. Francis de Sales offers this observation:
“Speak always of God as God, that is, reverently and devoutly, not with ostentation or affectation, but with a spirit of meekness, charity, and humility. Distill as much as you can of the delicious honey of devotion and of divine things imperceptibly into the ears of now one person and then of another. Pray to God in your soul that it may please God to make this holy dew sink deep into the hearts of those who hear you. It is wonderful how powerfully a sweet and amiable proposal of good things attracts to hearts of hearers.”
Today, how might we need to speak, to listen and to practice the language of love?
*****
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.”
“Pope Francis very recently declared that a new obligatory memorial is to be celebrated in honor of our Blessed Mother under the title: Mary, Mother of the Church (Mater Ecclesiae). Fittingly, this memorial will take place on the Monday following Pentecost Sunday. The decree was signed on February 11th (the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes) and released on March 3rd, 2018, by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.”
“Mary was present at the beginning of the Church: when Jesus entrusted the beloved disciple to Her at the foot of the Cross (cf John 19:25-27) and in the Cenacle, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, and all those gathered with them, at Pentecost (Acts 1:14).”
“This title of Our Lady, has its origins in early Church Fathers: St. Ambrose in the 4th century, whose Mariology Fr. Hugo Rahner rediscovered and brought to light, St. Augustine, ‘[who said] that Mary is the mother of the members of Christ, because with charity she cooperated in the rebirth of the faithful into the Church, while [Pope St. Leo the Great said] that the birth of the Head is also the birth of the body, thus indicating that Mary is at once Mother of Christ, the Son of God, and mother of the members of his Mystical Body, which is the Church’ [from Pope Francis’ decree].”
“So, what’s the purpose of this decree promulgating this obligatory memorial? According to the Vatican News, Cardinal Robert Sarah said, ‘the Holy Father wishes to promote this devotion in order to “encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety’.” (https://catholicexchange.com/mary-mother-church)
Speaking of “genuine Marian Piety”, Francis de Sales has this to say about “well-ordered devotion” to the Blessed Virgin Mary in his Treatise on the Love of God:
“A man who invites only one of his friends to visit him in no way offends the others. However, if he invites all of them, and then gives the chief places to those of lower rank while putting more honorable guests at the very bottom places, does he not offend both groups? He offends one group because he degrades them against reason and the other group because he makes fools of them! So, too, when we perform an action with a single reasonable motive, no matter how slight it might be, there is no offense against reason. However, a man who wants to have many motives must rank them according to their quality; otherwise, he commits a sin, for disorder is a sin, just as sin is disorder. A man who desires to please God and our Lady does what is very good, but one who would like to please our Lady as much as God or more than God would commit an intolerable breach of order. To each end we must give its proper rank, and consequently supreme rank to the end of pleasing God.” (Book XI, Chapter 13, p. 236)
There is absolutely no question that the Blessed Virgin Mary holds a uniquely special place in the Catholic Church, in the world and in the universe itself! At the end of the day, however, all glory and honor belong to God.
And God alone.
*****
“For he is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales remarked:
“If we like a certain practice, we despise everyone else and oppose everything that is not of our taste. If one of our inferiors is poor-looking or if we have taken a dislike to them, we find fault with everything they do. We never stop plaguing them and are always ready to run them down. By contrast, if we like someone because of their appearance, they can’t do anything that we won’t excuse. In general, we prefer he rich to the poor, even though they may be neither of better condition nor as virtuous. We even prefer those who are better dressed…” ” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 36, p. 216)
Let’s face it. In broad strokes, we do have favorites. The challenge is to act like God by not playing favorites, but rather, striving to treat each person with the respect and reverence that they deserve as children of God.
*****
“Anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal…”
No sooner had Mary received the announcement from the Angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of the Messiah than she “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. (Recall that in the context of the Annunciation, Mary had learned that her cousin was pregnant.) As if Mary didn’t have enough on her plate already, she dropped whatever she was doing in order to offer assistance to Elizabeth for “about three months”. Mary didn’t wait for the request; Mary anticipated the need.
One of the hallmarks of the Salesian tradition is this notion of “anticipating the need of our neighbor”. This quality invites us to be “on the lookout” for opportunities to do good for others. Simple things like holding open a door for another, offering to help carry someone’s groceries, assisting someone who may have dropped something on the floor, checking in on someone who’s under the weather, being the first to greet someone or to call someone by name, asking how someone is doing today. These actions are ordinary, everyday ways of honoring others by simply acknowledging their presence, by recognizing that they exist.
Here is where Paul’s admonition in his Letter to the Romans comes into play. Insofar as each day is loaded with countless opportunities to honor people by anticipating their needs – by “looking out” for their interests – such efforts could understandably become wearisome over time. In the Salesian tradition, we need to approach each new day as yet another-God given gift - the invitation to offer to do good things for others rather than waiting for others to ask us to do good things for them.
Mary embodied the virtue of anticipating the need of another in her decision to offer her cousin Elizabeth assistance without waiting to be asked. In so honoring her cousin she brought honor to herself.
Today, how might we honor Mary by following her example through our willingness to anticipate the needs of one another?
*****
“The universe lives and abides forever; to meet each need, each creature is preserved. All of them differ, one from another, yet none of them has he made in vain, For each in turn, as it comes, is good; can one ever see enough of their splendor?
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales used the example of an printer to illustrate the variety in God’s single creative act:
“In an instant a printer will draw off a picture representing in a beautiful engraving all that had been imagined in the sacred history. Although the printer has made but a single movement, his work contains a great many persons and various other objects, each one clearly distinct in order, rank, place distance and proportion. If one were not acquainted with the secret of thew work, one might be greatly astonished to see so many varied effects issue from a single act.”
“In the same way, nature like a painter multiplies and diversifies its acts according as it has various works in hand. It takes a long time to complete its great effects. But God, like a printer, has given existence to all different creatures which have been, are or shall be, by one single stroke of his all-powerful will. From his idea, as from a well-cut plate, God draws this marvelous distinction of persons and other things that succeed one another in seasons, ages and times, each one in its order as they were destined to be.” (TLG, Book 2, Chapter 2, Chapter 18, pp. 105-106)
I suppose it is true after all: variety is the spice of life! How might we add to that variety by meeting ourselves – to say nothing of others – where we happen to be just this day in the beauty of God created order?*****
“Therefore, I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.”
“If a man prays to God and perceives that he is praying, he is not perfectly attentive to his prayer. He diverts his attention from the God to whom he prays in order to think of the prayer by which he prays…A man in fervent prayer does not know whether he prays or not, for he does not think of the prayer he makes but of God to whom he makes it.” (TLG, Book VII, Chapter 6, p. 32)
Today, here’s a question for you. When you “ask the Father for anything” in Jesus’ name, upon what do you focus - that for which you ask or the person from whom you ask it?
*****
“When I was young and innocent, I sought wisdom…”
In his introduction to the Conference of St. Francis de Sales, Cardinal Wisemen writes:
“The spirit of St. Francis de Sales is eminently a spirit of wisdom. For certainly all that we have written will have been written in vain if our readers have not recognized in it a superhuman prudence. And what is this wisdom? Moderation, avoidance of extremes, adaptation to all circumstances, selection of means to answer all characters and positions – these constitute a wisdom practical and uncommon. When principles and maxims are found sufficiently wide and deep and reach every class and penetrate to whatever sphere of people and of things, for the benefit of the one and the improvement of the other, they form, in the best sense, a cod of wisdom.” (Conferences, pages lxiv – lxv.)
Seeking wisdom these days, regardless of your age? Look no further than St. Francis de Sales, a saint for all ages!
